Garden Boxes :: A Good Place to Start

"So, I saw this idea on Pinterest ..." a typical start to a sentence these days. Right?

Lucky for me, my hubby is usually pretty willing to help me figure out how to create or recreate what I had seen.

Two years ago I presented to him the idea of building garden boxes; one for each of our kiddos. 

They each got to choose what they wanted to plant in their box and were in charge of keeping the weeds at bay. 

At the time, this was our only garden so we kept it pretty simple.

Chase wanted strawberries, Coe wanted green beans, and Ella was up for helping Mommy with whatever; because at the time she was only Two. 

Last year, we added a bunch more strawberry plants to Chase's; thanks to some generous friends.

Coe's box was filled with sweet potatoes and bunching onions.

 

Ella's box was dedicated to Snap Peas, Pole Beans, and Zucchini. Coe build a wonderful trellis (again an idea from Pinterest) for the peas & beans to vine up.

This year, just as the season is getting started we are changing things up once again.

The first two boxes are now dedicated to strawberries. (Chase's plants from last year are beginning to venture their way out)

Coe's box is also going to be strawberries now as well, but looks pretty bare since these were just transplanted a few weeks ago.

However, if all goes well his will look like this in no time.

We moved the trellis so that it straddles the middle and last box in order to get better use of the area. This way we were able to plant the Snap Peas just on the edges. 

Note: I skipped the pole beans this year. They just weren't as good as the bush beans in my opinion.

Ella's box is full of lettuce, radishes, carrots, and two zucchini plants.

Thanks to one of my hens who refuses to stay in her coop we had to put some chicken wire to use. 

(I'm afraid the next step is going to be figuring something out to protect my strawberries.)

The Snap Peas are just starting to work their way to the chicken wire on the trellis.
If you haven't tried these before; DO! They are so yummy and very rarely make it to the house becuase the kids love them so much. In fact this year, I only planted half of them now and will start another batch in a few weeks in order to extend the season a bit.

I also planted a veining flower called Nasturtium which are supposed to help with keeping the squash bugs at bay. I had a HUGE problem with those awful things last year!

 Our garden boxes measure 14 feet by just over 4 feet. We filled them with black dirt, compost from our compost pile, a bit of wood ash from our outdoor wood burner, and added mulch between the boxes that we got from our local Preschool when they were redoing their play area.

If you garden in boxes, I'd love to hear what works for you!

Disclaimer: I am NO expert; in fact, I'm far from it! I'm just a mom trying to grow a few things for my family and capturing it all along the way.